Move over Baby Boomers, the next generation of investors is here and they plan on doing big things.
With Gen Y youth (born between 1981 and 2000) coming to an earning stage of their lives, it is worth noting that they behave differently from investors of the previous generations.
Gen Y, also known as Millennials, have grown up with the abundance of quality and timely information always within an arm’s reach. Young investors today use multiple sources of information that were not available to previous generations to make informed financial decisions. Therefore, investors of this era have become more independent and are inclined to perform research for their investments and finances on their own.
Side note: This is why we created Visual Capitalist. We want to inform the modern investor as quickly and efficiently as possible as they are inundated with a myriad of information every moment of every day. We believe visual learning is the best way to consume and retain useful information.
As Baby Boomers, and eventually Gen X, start to age and pull their investments to cover cost of retirement, more investment opportunities are opening up for Gen Y. In America, almost 20% of the population will be over the age of 65 by 2030. The older generation will go from being “wealth accumulators” to “wealth distributors”.
The economic collapse in the late 2000s led many young people to see their parents’ financial well-being fall apart. The newest generation of investors has learned that they need to be smart with their money and stay ahead of the game to avoid a similar fate.